I usually try to post only finished stuff on the blog, but I’m making an exception to that rule here. I’ve been building quite a lot of Deadzone terrain recently and made a few discoveries that I’d like to share, so here are a few WIP pics and some tips regarding building the Deadzone scenery

Last year, I bought two boxes of Deadzone Scenery Upgrade Pack. I did this to quickly and (fairly) cheaply get some scifi terrain on the table. I quickly noticed the components wouldn’t last long and invested in three more boxes plus a bagged Defence Line (more on that later).

I started building rather quickly, but ran out of steam for one reason or other. The project simmered for almost a year and this last week I’ve spent the evenings clipping and building. Here’s what I have ended up with.

Five walkways, two larger buildings, three 2×2 square ones and three smaller buildings, all with detachable roofs. Bottom right shows the left-overs. I also managed to cobble together a few barricades from left-over supports and the low wall thingies.

All in all I’m pretty happy with how the buildings turned out. I would like a few more small “hab cube” buildings and there are a few other buildings I would’ve liked to do. For instance, more two level buildings. When these are all painted and finished I’ll look into that. For now, I’m done with Deadzone terrain – though I did enjoy putting it all together! Now for some tips. Many (or all) of these might be old hat, but they were mostly my own discoveries so I thought I’d pass them on.

Tip 1 – Get more connectors. Now!When assembling, I soon realized the connectors wouldn’t last. We all know that by now, but for me it was a bit of a surprise. I checked for connector sprues on eBay but couldn’t find any for a decent price. I did however come across the Battlezones: Sci-Fi Defence Line. It came with a connector sprue which isn’t actually needed. Had I bought two of this, I wouldn’t have had to resort to short cuts. Had I bought a pack of four sprues, I probably would have had surplus connectors.

Defence Line – it includes not only a big lascannon and a little satelite dish, but a full connector sprue! And a defence line, but use that to build fortified watchtowers instead of lame barricades.

Tip 2 – Glue everything together – but dry-fit and plan first!
It might be tempting to just start building, but try to plan out all the buildings you’re doing so that you don’t end up lacking walls, ceilings or connectors. I laid out my buildings in “exploded diagrams” on my work table and portioned out as few connectors as possible. If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been able to build all the buildings I made. Also, when you come to the final assembly part – glue everything in place! I used Revell’s plastic glue and it worked a treat on the material.

Tip 3 – Using supports instead of straight connectors.
In the end, you will most likely run out of connectors. Luckily, there are other pieces you can use instead. I used supports instead of straight connectors on most of my walls.

Supports works fine as straight connectors – as do lamp posts. Too bad I didn’t get a photo of one. Use your imagination…

Tip 4 – Making straight connectors out of supports.
I ended up needing even more straight connectors than I had, even if I used the supports on exterior walls. The solution was to clip down a few supports into flat straight connectors. These were only used where they wouldn’t be visible, so I didn’t file them or trim them very neatly.

These ersatz connectors were applied on the underside of a roof. I first separated the connector from the ends of the support and then clipped off the protruding part from the connector. Small clips (and good clippers) are recommended!

Tip 5 – Removable roofs using struts.
When I started building I immediately decided I didn’t just want to block line of sight with the buildings. I wanted to be able to place objectives inside as well. Who knows – eventually I might end up modeling the interiors of some buildings too. To facilitate this, I made the roofs detachable using trimmed struts. It’s important to remember to trim the connector peg that meets the roof. You don’t want that snug snap-fit, they should only be there to keep the roof from sliding off.

Top row shows the roof on and off, while bottom row shows the use of a regular strut and a modified one. Also, not the trimmed connector pegs.

Tip 6 – Making corner connectors out of struts.
To not run out of corner connectors, I had to resort to using struts in some cases. This was mostly done where I had forgotten to include corner connectors for attaching an upper level building to the lower level roof, as I didn’t want to risk wasting valuable corner connectors. I simply cut off and trimmed down the strut so only the connector bit was left. It’s a two snip affair, so not very complicated. If the connector will be visible, it can be a good idea to trim it further.

Four ways to cut a strut. Top left is unmodified, top right was a version I ended up never using. Bottom left is what I used on the roof strut support variant above and bottom right is a corner connector made from a strut.

Ersatz corner connectors in use.

That’s it for now – I have a few more tips related to construction but I’ll get to that when I show the finished pieces instead.

It’s been a while since I posted progress on my lizard Raizze models from Lancer Miniatures. I still think they’re a bit rough, but they’re still fun models and I recommend them to anyone! At just a little above a quid a pop they’re as much a bargain as you’ll get these days. Since last time, I’ve painted a few more. Here are the last two – a regular trooper and one with a support weapon of some sort. I think I have 6 or so to go for a full squad, plus another 5 or so for mercenary duties. Probably won’t post more on them until the full squad is done.

And to prove my point from a few posts ago, here’s a shot of the current Raizze force giving three charging war apes what for.

I finally managed to dislodge my thumb from my arse and got on with painting this dwarf for an online buddy with whom I traded painting service for lead.

Dwarf prospector, painted for thebinmann

It’s yet another dwarf adventurer by the Perry brothers, so old vintage Citadel. I really struggled with getting started on this guy but once I got dug in it nearly painted itself. I must say I’m really happy with how it turned out and I’m a bit sad to see it go.

I said this would be my last commission piece I paint for someone, but I’m afraid I might get suckered in again with another possible offer of some desirable lead. Sheesh, I’m like a magpie with lead. Just can’t say no.

Here’s a photo of the guy above together with his mate, fighting off a few vicious tomb guardians.

I’ve painted another model for the I’ve never painted a… before club over on the Oldhammer forums. Actually, I painted three – but here’s the first one of three war apes.

War Ape, from WOTC

I’ve had these guys for yonks, and always liked the sculpt but abhorred the original paintjob. I have a tray of DDM prepaints that I’ve rebased and I’m going to repaint at some point or other. These guys were on it. Now they’re painted, in the cupboard, with only a few measly hours on them all in all. The paintjob was very quick; it’s just a base coat that have been drybrushed up and washed over with a final highlighting drybrush on top of that. Still looks so much better than the original.

Left; my repaint. Right: Original WOTC paintjob

As I mentioned, I did two more. Here’s a shot of all three. I went with slightly different base coats and highlights on each, since they’re already identically posed. As you’ll see in my coming posts, these guys will fit just as well in a fantasy setting as in a scifi game.

Over on LAF there’s a painting club going, with the name (and theme) “It’s Alive!”. I’m resurrecting my thread on the Stillburg project, which is my now stalled fantasy campaign for Song of Blades and Heroes that my cousin and I have played a few games in. It’s actually what I begun with when getting back into miniatures some years ago. With only a handfull miniatures left to call it done, this painting club coincided well with my own plan for a year of cleaning out old half-painted or stalled projects from my shelf of primed lead.